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 "The Felt Lady"™

Bits and Pieces about Beaver Hat Making

by

Suzanne Pufpaff©
Nashville, MI

 Definition of terms:

--batt - the large mass of fibers that have been prepared for further processing. Batts are used in both felting and spinning.

--blank - The conical shaped mass of fibers which is felted and fulled and then blocked into a hat.

-bowing - The organizing of fibers into a batt using a vibrating string on a six to seven foot bow in preparation for felting. The tool, called a bow, looks like a very large violin bow.

--carding - The organizing of fibers into a tangle-free mass using a tool with many short, sharp nails or wires spaced very chose together on a cloth. The tool is called a card.

--carroting - The soaking of pelts in a solution of mercuric oxide to make the fur come off the pelts easier. This was called carroting because it gave the fibers an orange tint.

--dyeing - The adding of color to the fibers

--felting - The tangling of animal fibers together using a process of moisture and agitation. Felting is done on wool or fur fibers which have not been spun, woven or knitted first.

--fulling - The shrinking of an item like a hat by further additions of moisture and agitation. Fulling is done on felted, woven and knitted items alike.

--stiffening - A solution added to the hat to make it hard.

--waterproofing - A solution to coat the hat to allow it to be worn in wet weather.

--Beaver pelt -The beaver was trapped, usually by Native Americans, and skinned. The skins were then stretched and dried before they were taken to the trading post.

--The travels of the pelt on the way to a hat - At the trading post the Native Americans traded for guns and knives and the traders took the furs and shipped them off to the hatters. Most beaver hats were made in France and England in the 1900's. The first step in the making of a hat required the fur to be removed for the pelt. This was women's work. The fur was then carded to take the tangles and excess dirt out of the fibers. Only the undercoat , thick winter coat, was used in felting. The long outer hair fibers were either removed first from the pelts by the women or worked out of the felt in the fulling process by the men. In most cases both steps were needed for complete removal.

--The hat continues - Using moisture and agitation, the fur fibers were tangled, pressed together and shrunk to make felt. After the felt was fulled as far as it would go, it was shaved with knives and brushed to bring up the nap. The order varied with the maker, but this would also be where dyes, stiffeners and waterproofing were added to the felt hat.

--Wooden hat blocks and their uses - Wooden hat blocks were used to shape the hats first in a rough shaping after the fulling was completed and then the final blocking just before the finishing and trimming.   final step was to block, trim and finish the felt into a wonderful beaver felt hat.

--Hats evoked hierarchy and precedence. They symbolized the authority of the wearer. During the eighteenth century, hats were a reflection of the wearer's social position. Without an individual's hat, a person had no position, no status.

-Sayings about hats--Ever heard of "throwing your hat into the ring" or "passing the hat"? Both these ideas come from the fact that in the early history of hat wearing, the status of the wearer was reflected by the type of hat worn. The more elaborate the hat, the higher the status of the wearer.  This led to some extremely large and useless hats.

--Hat Styles--For two hundred years, the broad-brimmed hat dominated styles in America. The height and shape of the crown and the width and treatment of the brim marked the wearer as belonging to a particular area and/or religious persuasion. The French bicorne had a brim so large that the most effective place to wear the hat was folded under the arm rather than on the head, but it had very high status. The height of crowns and the width of brims also reflected the status of the wearer, the higher and the wider the better. The tricorne was created as a result of a hat brim that got out of hand. The stiffeners used in making the hats were not strong enough to keep the brims up so the brims were attached in three places using loops and buttons, hooks and eyes or by cord threaded through holes in the brim. The idea was to be able to let the brim down in bad weather when more protection was needed. Great idea, but it didn't work well in practice. Once the hat had been moved up and down a few times, it would not stay out of the face when let down. Only the rich could afford to have their tricornes reblocked and stiffened on a regular basis to make is possible to more the brim up and down. Everyone else just left them tacked up.

--Who made the hats--In eighteenth century France, journeymen in the hatting trade made two hats a day or nine hats a week. The making of a hat in the eighteenth century involved about 36 separate steps carried out by at least 5 different groups of workers. All these steps took place in the same place. The first and last groups were women. They were responsible for preparing the fibers and doing the finishing work on the hats. The middle three groups were all men. They were responsible for bowing the fur into batts, felting and fulling the batts into hats, and blocking, shaving, dyeing, stiffening and waterproofing the hats.

--The Old "Mad Hatter" --The mercury from carroting was what caused "Mad Hatters" . This was actually heavy metal poisoning from mercury. The mercury attacked the nervous system of those involved in the felting and fulling of the hats. The mercury was airborne in the steam coming off the felt.

--The Prize winning Beaver Hat--Beaver was prized above all other furs for hatmaking. It felted readily into a dense, durable, waterproof felt with a silky sheen.  The very best beaver pelts for hats came from "coat beaver"

--A Beaver Coat,you say--Coat beaver was beaver pelts which had been worn by the Native Americans through at least one season. The pelts were worn fur side next to the body. During the course of wearing the skin, the long guard hairs fell out of the pelt so only the soft under fur was left. The under fur is what is used to make the felt hats.

--Sexism in the Hat trades--The tasks were divided on the basis of the sex of the workers. The women dehaired the pelts (removed the long guard hairs) and shaved the fur from the pelts. In many cases the wives and daughters of the felters. The women also sorted the fur by color, then carded and weighed the fur.

--And just how much Beaver does it take to make a hat--Four pounds of beaver pelts were needed to get a pound of fur for felting the hat.

--Not everything is women's work, bowing the fiber--The men took over with the bowing step. This is where the fur was freed of dirt, tangles and prepared for felting. The vibrating string on the bow was passed repeatedly through the fibers to create the batts. This work was done in a enclosed, draft-free room. Very hot dirty work. 4 to 8 batts were used to build the basic hat blank.

--The felting begins.--The male feltmaker took the hat blank to an area where a kettle or caldron was filled with the hot fulling solution.

--Fulling Solution ingredients--Solutions were usually very acidic and used things like wine wastes and uric acid. The only kettles able to hold the up to the acid solutions were lead.

--Back to the Mad Hatter--Another source of heavy metal poisoning which leads to madness.

--Animals vs. Plants and other stuff --Felting takes place by using animal fibers and tangling them using the scales that are present only on animal fibers. Plant fibers will not make a true felt.

--The big and the little of hats--The hat blanks would reduce from 30% to 50% in size during the fulling steps of the felting process.

--The rest of the process--After the hats were completely fulled, they would be blocked and dyed. Any stiffeners or other proofing would also be added at this time. This was also a male task.   The hat was then ready for the finisher, usually women again. This was where the final trimming and bands were added.

--Trade wars--Various hat shops would develop their own recipes for dyes, stiffeners and water proofing which were considered trade secrets. Making a secret known to a rival shop could be punished by death!

The ups and downs of popularity---The popularity of the beaver hat in sixteenth century England depleted the beavers in Europe and Russia. The depletion of those sources is what made the American fur trade so lucrative. So valuable were beaver hats that Nantucket Island was purchased in 1659 for thirty pounds and two beaver hats, one for Governor Thomas Mayhew and one for his wife.

--Supply and Demand--Supply and demand was constantly changing the value of the beaver hat. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, beaver fur was in greatest supply. This is when the beaver hat became available to the greatest number of levels of society. By the nineteenth century, the beaver population had been so heavily depleted that the hat again became very expensive. The hats eventually became so valuable, they were left as bequests in wills. At no time during the beaver hat popularity was the source of beaver fur very reliable.  There was either so much of it being warehoused that is would rot before it could be used or the supplies coming in were not enough to meet demands because of poor weather, loss of beavers or trade wars.

--Beaver shipping--Between 1631 and 1636, Plymouth colony shipped an average of 1200 beaver pelts each year while the French, Spanish and Dutch traders added addition 4,000 to 7,000 to that number each year. Unreliable fur supplies were one of the causes which made beaver hats come in a wide range of qualities.

--Hat quality--The best hats had 9 to 12 ounces of pure beaver fur in them. As the demand for beaver hats increased, hat makers made them with less and less beaver fur. The beaver was mixed with all types of other furs- rabbit, mole, seal skin, wool, muskrat, etc. As little as 20% beaver was still called a beaver hat. These mixed fiber hats were called stuff hats. When the demand for a cheap beaver hat became even greater, the silk hat was created. In reality, this was a hat pasted up from anything from cheep wool felt to muslin and cardboard with a beaver nap applied to the surface.

--The Silk Hat--Most late 19th century and early 20th century beaver hats were usually silk hats.

--And Who Discovered Felt anyway--Hatters generally ascribe the honor of inventing felting to the monk, St. Clement. He was marching at the head of his pilgrim army and put some sheep's wool in his sandals to relieve blisters on his feet and when he reached his destination, he found the motion of walking plus the perspiration and pressure of his feet had created felt. He is still the patron saint of hat makers. His feast day has been celebrated since the fifteenth century on November 23rd. Felting in reality has be "discovered" many times throughout history in multiple locations.

--Hatmaking in the United States--The hatting trade of the United States was first recognized by the London Board of Trade in the year 1732. Hat making in the United States started as a cottage industry, moved to the small village shop and finally to actually hat factories.

--America's First hat Factory--In 1780 Zadoc Benedict established the first hat factory in the United States in Danbury, Connecticut. The factory produced 18 fur hats of  rabbit and beaver skins in a week.

--Philadelphia had the hats--By 1800, Philadelphia lead all cities in the manufacture of hats. There were 68 working hatters in the city. The annual manufacture value of hats in the United States in 1810 was estimated at ten million dollars.

 

If you would like to know more about Hat Making in the Nineteenth Century, Suzanne has available the "Nineteenth Century Hatmaker's and Felter's Manuals which is a reprint of 2 19th century hat makers manuals in their entirety. It even includes listings of London Hat Makers of the time. Go to

 http://fibermill.yurtboutique.com/felting.htm